Convert EPUB to PDF

How it works

Tap or click the box and pick your EPUB file; several books can be selected at once. This tool opens the .epub package inside the browser, reads the book's reading order (the spine), takes each chapter's text, headings, lists, tables and JPEG/PNG images, and lays them out as a PDF with selectable text, with the cover as the first page. You do not need Calibre, Adobe Digital Editions or a reading app, and it works on a phone. A concrete case: you downloaded an .epub from a publisher or from Project Gutenberg and want to upload it to your school's learning platform, print it, or read it on an old tablet that has no EPUB reader. Save the file to your phone or computer, tap the box on this page and pick it from Files (iPhone) or Downloads (Android). Leave the paper size on Letter if you will print it in the US or Canada, choose A4 for a printer in the UK or Europe, and choose A5 for a tablet or phone screen (book size: the page fills the screen and the type is readable without zooming), then press "Convert to PDF". In the PDF, every chapter starts on a new page; if the chapter name from the book's table of contents is not already at the top of the chapter, the tool writes it as a heading. The layout is not the one in your reading app: an EPUB has no fixed pages, the text is reflowed onto the paper you chose with a margin, and the book's CSS and fonts are not carried over. The result line gives the chapter, page and image count, the paper size and the point size; if an image could not be embedded or no cover was found, it says so too. Copy-protected (DRM) books cannot be opened, and the tool says so plainly.

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What is EPUB?

EPUB is the open standard for e-books, first published by the IDPF in 2007 and maintained by the W3C today. It looks like one .epub file, but inside it is a ZIP package: each chapter is an XHTML web page, the formatting is CSS, the pictures are separate files, and the reading order is listed in a file called content.opf (chapter names sit in toc.ncx in EPUB 2 and in nav.xhtml in EPUB 3). There are no fixed pages: the reading app reflows the text to the screen size and the font size you pick, which is why the same book can show 900 "pages" on a phone and 400 on a tablet. Publishers, library lending apps such as Libby, Kobo, Apple Books and Google Play Books use this format; Kindle uses its own formats, but Amazon's Send to Kindle service accepts .epub files. This tool opens the package on your device, reads the chapters in order and writes them into a PDF.

What is PDF?

PDF is the format where the page is fixed like paper: the position of every letter and picture is stored in the file, so the book looks the same whoever opens it and on whatever device. For an e-book that is both a gain and a loss. The gain: every device and every program opens a PDF, it prints, the page numbers are the same for everyone (when a class is told "page 42", everyone sees the same spot), and school learning platforms and upload portals accept PDF. The loss: if the page does not fit a phone screen you have to zoom and scroll, and you cannot enlarge the type while reading as you can in an EPUB; the size is chosen once, during conversion. That is why this tool also offers A5 as a paper size: a book-sized page fits a tablet or phone screen. The tool embeds the font in the PDF, so accented letters such as é, ñ or ü show correctly on every device, and the text stays selectable and searchable.

What is DRM?

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the copy protection that ties a purchased e-book to the seller's app and the account it was bought with. In an EPUB it shows up in the META-INF/encryption.xml file inside the package: the chapter files are encrypted and the key sits on the seller's server (Adobe ADEPT and Readium LCP are the common systems; library loans through Libby and OverDrive use them too). An encrypted chapter cannot be opened by this tool or by Calibre; the tool recognises the situation and says "copy-protected" plainly instead of producing an empty or broken PDF. Books where only the font files are scrambled (font obfuscation) are not DRM-protected: the text is open and converts without trouble. Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, books that publishers sell as DRM-free, and EPUBs you wrote yourself or built in Calibre carry no protection.

What is the difference between EPUB and PDF?

EPUB flows, PDF is fixed. An EPUB has no such thing as a page: the text sits there like a web page, and the reading app reflows it every time to the screen size, the font and the type size you chose; that makes it comfortable on a phone, but "page 42" is a different spot for everyone, and printing it means fixing it to a page first. In a PDF the size of every page and the position of every letter on it are written into the file: it looks the same on every device, it prints, and you can cite a page number; in return it needs zooming on a small screen and the type size cannot be changed afterwards. EPUB is the format for reading, PDF the format for sending, printing, uploading to a platform and citing. When this tool fixes an EPUB into a PDF, it takes the chapter order from the table of contents, starts each chapter on a new page and leaves the paper size to you: Letter or A4 for the printer, A5 for the screen. The reverse direction (PDF to EPUB) is not on this page; turning a fixed page back into flowing text breaks line endings and columns and is a separate job.

What is carried over and what is lost?

Carried over: the cover image (first page, full page; skipped if you choose "Leave out"), the order of the chapters from the table of contents, the chapter names (from the book's toc.ncx or nav.xhtml file; if the same heading already opens the chapter it is not written twice), Heading 1 to 6 (the first three in a larger size, all bold), paragraphs, line breaks, left, centre and right alignment (from an inline style or an align attribute), bulleted and numbered lists (nested lists are indented), block quotes (indented), code blocks (grey background, spacing preserved), tables (rows with equal columns; the header row bold on a grey background), horizontal rules, and JPEG and PNG images (cover included; a JPEG or PNG wrapped in an SVG container is taken too). A paragraph that is bold throughout stays bold; a few bold or italic words inside a paragraph are not carried over.

Lost: the book's CSS and fonts. In an EPUB the look is left to the reading app; this tool builds the page layout from scratch, so columns, boxes, coloured backgrounds, drop caps and margin notes do not come through, and the text is set as one plain flow on the paper you chose with a margin of 0.8 in (2 cm) on Letter and A4 and 0.6 in (1.5 cm) on A5. Fixed-layout comics and children's books do not keep their page images; the text and pictures are reflowed, and the result line says so. SVG drawings and GIF and WebP pictures cannot be embedded and are counted; MathML formulas and video are skipped. Instead of the book's fonts, one font with full coverage of accented Latin letters is used (Noto Sans, regular weight); Cyrillic, Arabic and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters come out as question marks. The trade-off: the book's design goes, and in return you get a PDF that opens on every device, can be searched and can be printed.

Which setting for which situation?

Paper size: if you will print the book or upload it to a school or work platform, leave it on Letter (on this page "Automatic" already picks Letter); choose A4 for a printer in the UK, Europe, Australia or India, where a Letter file printed on A4 paper comes out with uneven margins. If you will read it on a tablet, a phone or an e-reader screen, choose A5: 5.83 × 8.27 in (14.8 × 21 cm) is the size of a paperback, the page fills the screen, and the short lines keep your eye from losing the start of the next line; a Letter page on the same screen looks small and needs zooming. Font size: 11 pt is the size of a printed book and enough in most cases. Pick 12 pt for a reader whose eyes tire or for an older relative. To cut the page count (print cost, a page limit on an assignment), choose 10 pt; 9 pt reads fine on Letter or A4 but needs zooming on a phone. Headings come out 5, 3 and 1 pt above the size you chose.

Cover: if you will print the book or keep it in a library folder, "Include" is the right choice; the cover becomes the first page of the PDF, and file managers build the thumbnail from it. For a text going to a school platform, a few chapters taken from a source book, or a book you converted only to read, "Leave out" saves one page and a few hundred kilobytes. Once the conversion is done, feed the PDF to the compress PDF tool if you want it smaller, or to the merge PDF tool if you want several books in one file. If you will have it printed, the page count is in the result line, so you can work out the cost of copies and double-sided printing before you order.

When to use this tool instead of Calibre?

Calibre is an open-source e-book manager, and it converts EPUB to PDF with a program installed on a computer, keeping most of the book's CSS; it offers page headers, page numbers, margins and font settings. If Calibre is on your computer and the book's design matters to you (two columns, decorative chapter openings, coloured boxes), convert it there. This tool is for a different need: you are on a phone or on a computer where you cannot install programs, you need the book's text and pictures as a plain, readable PDF right now, and you do not want the file to leave your device. Most online converters upload the book to a server; on this page there is no upload, and it works even in airplane mode.

To be clear about files that do not convert: Kindle formats (.azw, .azw3, .mobi, .kfx) are not EPUB and are not accepted here; convert an unprotected Kindle file to EPUB in Calibre first. A copy-protected (DRM) book opens neither here nor in Calibre; the protection is only lifted inside the seller's own app (Kindle, Kobo, Google Play Books, Adobe Digital Editions, Libby). A damaged or half-downloaded .epub gets a "could not be opened" message; download the book again. A scanned book that contains only pictures (every page one image) converts, but the text cannot be selected, because the source has no text.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert an EPUB file to PDF?

Tap the box on this page and pick your .epub file, choose the paper size (Letter or A4 for a printer, A5 for a screen) and press "Convert to PDF"; the PDF downloads in a few seconds and lands in your Downloads folder. You do not need Calibre or a reading app, and it works on a phone. The cover becomes the first page, every chapter starts on a new page in table-of-contents order, and the text stays selectable and searchable.

Why will a DRM-protected EPUB not open?

Most purchased e-books are copy-protected: the chapter files inside the package are encrypted, and the key sits in the seller's app tied to your account; this tool does not know the key, so it cannot read the chapters and reports "copy-protected (DRM)". That is not a bug but a condition of the sale, and no converter, Calibre included, removes the protection. Buy a DRM-free edition from the publisher or read the book in the seller's app. EPUBs borrowed from a library through Libby or OverDrive are DRM-protected as well. Books you wrote yourself or downloaded from Project Gutenberg or Standard Ebooks carry no protection and convert without trouble.

Can I open a Kindle book (.azw, .mobi)?

No. .azw, .azw3, .mobi and .kfx are Amazon's Kindle formats; they are not ZIP packages like EPUB but binary formats of their own, and most of them carry DRM as well. This page reads .epub only. If you have an unprotected .mobi or .azw3, convert it to EPUB in Calibre first, then bring it here. The other direction is worth knowing too: to read an .epub on a Kindle you do not need a PDF at all, since Amazon's Send to Kindle service accepts .epub files directly.

Will the layout look like it does in the book?

No, and it cannot: an EPUB has no fixed pages, the reading app reflows the text to the screen every time it opens. This tool sets the text as one plain flow on the paper you chose with a margin; headings, lists, quotes, tables and pictures come through, the book's CSS and fonts do not. The result is the book's content, not its design. If you want to keep the look of a book with columns, decorative styling or a fixed layout (a comic, a children's book), Calibre's PDF export gets closer.

Is my book uploaded anywhere?

No. When the page loads, everything it needs (the PDF writer and the font included) is downloaded to your browser; the code that opens the .epub package, reads the chapters and writes the PDF runs on your device, and neither the book nor its contents is sent to any address. You can test it in airplane mode: with the page open, switch the internet off and the conversion still finishes. Not handing a copyrighted book to a third-party server while converting it is the reason to pick this tool.